Soeharto (the end)

Photo: Rizky Dinata

New York Times
Suharto, Former Indonesian Dictator, Dies at 86

Asia Times
OBITUARY 

Suharto leaves an iron-fist legacy

By Michael Vatikiotis

 

Financial Times of London 1.30.2008

Time-lag archipelago: Suharto casts a long shadow over Indonesia
By John Aglionby in Jakarta

…If everything is so rosy, then, why are so many Indonesians so loath to mourn their late president? After all, he reduced inflation from 650 per cent to single digits in a few years, lifted gross domestic product per capita from $50 to $1,000, won awards from the United Nations for his family planning programmes, made the country self-sufficient in rice and unified the peoples of 17,500 islands and 350 ethnic groups.

It is because several other, less savoury aspects of Suharto’s rule are so deep-rooted that the country has barely made inroads into tackling them, analysts say. Many Indonesians believe that it is only when the country has seriously tackled corruption, addressed the human rights abuses that saw anywhere between hundreds of thousands and 2m people killed and built properly functioning institutions that the nation can really claim to be developed. …>go to article   

AFP 1.30.2008
 US propped up Suharto despite rights abuses: documents

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States declassified documents Monday detailing how Washington propped up ex-Indonesian leader Suharto, who died at the weekend, at the expense of democracy and human rights.

The documents, declassified following requests under a freedom of information law, showed the US administration did not use its leverage to bring Suharto to account during his 32-year reign until his last months in office.

“One thing that is clear from the tens of thousands of pages of which we had declassified concerning US ties with Suharto from 1966 to 1998 — at no moment did US presidents ever exercise their maximum leverage over his regime to press for human rights or democratization,” Brad Simpson of the National Security Archive told AFP. …>go to article

Photo: Al Jazeera